Star Wars: Scourge (30 page)

“These hulks … were found in an abandoned weapons cache … when this plant was founded,” said Vago. “They date back to … to … to”—she slipped into Huttese here—
“tatammo nar shaggan.”

“A time before you had servants,” Mander translated for the others. Before the Hutts met with and dominated the Klatooinians, the Niktos, the Weequay, and others. Mander’s hand drifted to his lightsaber, but one of the Twi’leks saw the motion and snapped out an order in Huttese.

From the surrounding shadows issued more security droids. These were not the stumbling hulks from below, but rather serpentine-bodied constructs with two arms on their upper torsos, one ending in a passable four-fingered hand, the other in a refurbished blaster carbine. Their crested, conical faces lacked obvious eyes, their sensors hidden beneath discolored armor plating.

“Yes,” said Vago, still in Basic. “The droids have no … designation. Names?… But they serve well.”

“This is over, Vago,” said Mander.

“Perhaps …,” said the Hutt. “You served … mighty Popara well. Perhaps you can serve … us. A
Jeedai
would be … useful.” The last phrase rolled off her lips like a poisoned candy.

“The Corporate Sector knows we came here,” said Angela. “They will send someone else.” Mander glanced at her, but could not catch her eye. He looked at Reen, but the Pantoran’s eyes were locked on the Twi’leks, waiting for them to make a move. The Twi’leks’ eyes were shifting, from Vago to the three of them and back. They were distracted by the conversation.

“That would be … difficult,” said the Hutt, and Mander saw that pools of perspiration were forming along Vago’s forehead. The Hutt was nervous, and more nervous than just the three of them accounted for. “If you would agree to … go back to your ship … and say you found nothing … you would be rewarded.” Her chest worked like a bellows now, and she drew in vast hiccups of air as she spoke.

“Fat chance,” said Reen.

“Then you will have to remain here … as guests,” said Vago.

“As prisoners, you mean,” said Angela Krin. Vago managed an uncomfortable, revealing shrug.

And suddenly it all made sense to Mander: The Hutt’s nervousness. Speaking in a language she obviously hated. The bodyguards that seemed more interested in keeping an eye on their supposed employer than protecting her.

Vago wasn’t their employer at all, and they were not her bodyguards.

“She’s right. We would be captives,” Mander said firmly. “Captives like you are, Vago Gejalli.”

The Hutt’s eyes flew open wide in surprise, and she unleashed a curse at Mander’s accusation. More surprised, however, were the Twi’lek bodyguards. One brought up her blaster pistol, while the other barked an order and grasped Vago the Hutt firmly with her shock glove. Vago let out a cry as electrical arcs ringed her conical head and sparks danced in the depths of her wide, liquid eyes. The Hutt slumped to the floor.

But the Twi’leks were not as fast as they had hoped. The one who’d drawn first, fired wide. Reen had been waiting for the opportunity, and her blaster was up and her shot caught the former handmaiden square in the face. The Twi’lek fell backward without firing another shot.

The remaining Twi’lek, the one who’d shocked Vago, was now bellowing orders. The serpentine droids slid forward, blasters blazing. Mander pulled his lightsaber and swung it in a perfect pattern, deflecting each blaster bolt in turn back on the enemy. He could see the patterns in the blasts, able to determine which ones were wide to start with—and could therefore be ignored—and which were potentially dangerous to the three of them. These, he could analyze easily, knowing which among them were of the most immediate danger and the quickest reach, then curling the arc of his blade against them so the photonic energy caught on his blade and was bounced away. And even then, he could see where the now-deflected shot would land, and target it against one of the droids, avoiding both his allies and the fallen form of Vago.

Time slowed for him as he moved forward, staying out of the way of Reen and Angela Krin’s own shots, making himself the target of the ancient droids, directing their fire to him, and allowing him to return each volley clearly and cleanly. Already four of them were toppling, their battle-scarred housings punctured with
shots from their own upgraded weapons. For Mander, it didn’t feel like a cold analysis progression of one shot, then the next shot, but rather like music, where each note logically followed the next. Where each motion smoothly dovetailed into the next, where each action was clear, and where thought itself was not necessary.

Then something drove hard into his stomach and time resumed, the real world in all its conflicting messiness descending on him. He had concentrated on the blasterfire, and had paid insufficient attention to the surviving Twi’lek, who now had risen from behind the fallen Hutt and lunged at him, slamming the Jedi with her shoulder and driving him backward. He held on to his blade, but the handmaiden-turned-bodyguard had rolled him back and stepped onto his wrist with a heavily booted foot. She stabbed one hand under his chin, throttling him by the neck. The other, the one bearing the shock glove, she raised high about her head. Her sharpened teeth glittered in maniacal delight, and the Tempest-thick veins on her head-tail throbbed.

And just as quickly, the Twi’lek was gone, screaming, vanished into the midst of the surrounding battle. Mander pulled himself off the floor and saw that Reen had grabbed the handmaiden’s lekku halfway up its length and pulled back sharply. The head-tails were particularly sensitive and the Twi’lek shrieked and clawed at the Pantoran, the shock glove trailing bolts of lightning as she lunged. Reen dodged beneath the clumsy assault and brought the heel of her pistol up hard across the handmaiden’s face. The Twi’lek collapsed with a whimper.

Angela Krin, for her part, had laid down a withering rate of fire, blasting the remainder of the serpentine droids in quick succession. One, partially hidden by the bodies of its comrades, raised a head cautiously above
the debris … only to have that head explode with a carefully aimed shot from the CSA officer’s blaster.

Krin walked over to Vago’s prostrate form and pressed the barrel of her blaster against the Hutt’s head. Mander grabbed her by the wrist and turned the weapon away as the dazed Hutt muttered something that, in another universe, might be considered a phrase of gratitude.

Angela Krin stared at Mander. “We can’t trust her. She’s part of this. She killed Popara.”

“She
didn’t
,” said Mander. “She was a prisoner, a hostage of the Twi’leks. She was acting under duress.”

Angela shook free with her weapon. “It doesn’t matter—she needs to die. She’s a Hutt. She’s a threat to Mika.”

“All the more reason to keep her alive,” said Mander. “Someone has to explain this to the Hutt Council of Elders when we’re done.”

“Jeedai,”
muttered the groggy Hutt.
“Mika respoonda. Gosa o breej.”

“I know,” said Mander to the Hutt.

“You know what?” asked Angela.

“Who is really responsible for this,” replied Mander. “The Tempest, the smuggling, Popara’s death. All of it.”

Reen came up, her blaster drawn and ready. “So what are we waiting for?”

Mander turned to the Pantoran. “You both need to take Vago back to the ship and take off. Call Eddey for help.”

He looked at Angela, who was still staring at the prostrate form of the Hutt. Emotions played across her face. Anger, fear, and frustration, each in turn. Mander had seen it before. It was as if conflicting programs were all running at once in her mind.

“We need to protect him,” said Angela Krin, and once again tried to bring her weapon to bear against the female Hutt.

And Mander realized what was going on in her mind.

To Angela he said sternly, “You need to protect Vago.” He flexed his voice as he said it, fitting the words into the crenellations of her brain, backing up his words with the power of the Force. He moved his hand slightly as he said it.

Angela nodded and parroted his words, “I need to …” And then she stopped, a look of angry betrayal spreading across her face. “That’s a mind trick! You were using the Force on me!”

“Yes,” said Mander. “And it’s not the first time it has happened to you, is it? Think about it. Back on your own ship, after we got back from Endregaad.”

Angela’s face fell with a sudden realization, and she looked at the Hutt and the blaster in her hand. And a cold look of anger settled finally onto her face.

“He did it to me, didn’t he?” she said. “I was worried about you and
he
was the one.”

“Yes,” said Mander. “But you don’t have time to be angry—you have to get Vago to safety. Can you do that?”

Angela Krin blinked for a moment, and said, “Yes, yes I can. But is that my decision, or yours?” She looked at Mander, a touch of fear in her eyes.

“The fact you asked the question gives you the answer,” Mander said gently.

“What’s going on?” asked Reen. She had been scanning the area for more of the ancient droids.

“Angela was mind-controlled by someone using the Force,” said Mander. “I thought she was bit by the adventuring bug, and that she was acting oddly for that reason—sometimes calculating, sometimes emotional. But it was something much worse than I realized.”

Angela Krin gave him a stern look. She was back in control once more. “I should go with you.”

“There is precious little time,” said Mander, “and I
need both of you to keep Vago alive.” To Reen he said, “Angela may be confused for a little while. Can you handle both of them?”

Reen nodded and said, “Only if you insist. Where are you going?”

“To the bridge,” said Mander. “That’s where this will end.”

“You’d better hurry,” said Reen. “They’ve got more reinforcements on the way.”

Already the metal ramps around them sounded with the heavy footfalls of the ancient war droids and the metal scrapings of the serpentine security droids.

“We’re going to have to fight our way out,” said Reen.

“Then you better start now,” said Mander pressing a comlink into his ear. “Keep Vago alive. Call me on the comm when you’re safe.” And with that he was gone.

The turbolifts to the upper levels and the bridge were on the far side of the vats. Mander leapt up to one of the catwalks and dashed for the lifts.

Behind him, he could hear blasterfire. More droids had descended on Angela and Reen’s position, and he hoped the two had found more cover than that provided by a stunned Hutt. Beneath him, the larger war droids on the factory floor were now opening up from a variety of torso-mounted weaponry. A staccato rainbow of ionic bolts laced through the catwalk.

Mander dodged them nimbly, but the onslaught of firepower took its toll on the catwalk wires. The elevated grating behind him separated and cascaded into the turbulent pits of Tempest below. Wires ahead of him, overloaded by the strain, gave way and snapped, and the catwalk fell out from beneath Mander’s feet.

The Jedi leapt onto one of the clear pipes carrying the effluvia from the crater without losing a step. The war droids below did not let up their fire, and the pipes were pierced in numerous places from their blasts. Greenish
liquid showered down on top of his attackers, its acids etching them deeply. The acid shower worked into their gyros and power packs as well, and Mander heard the rewarding sound of multiple explosions as the war droids beneath him blossomed into fireballs.

He had reached the far balcony when a particularly ancient hulk of a war droid lumbered out of the shadows. This one was twice the size of its comrades on the floor, though of the same design—spindly bipedal legs supporting a top-heavy torso bristling with firepower.

What had been the ancient Hutts’ model for this, wondered Mander as he charged forward.

The war hulk unleashed a salvo that could have brought down a small starship, but Mander had already anticipated the attack, closing the last few meters in a single rolling cascade, curling as he flew forward, his lightsaber at a right angle to his body. He landed hard and spun horizontally across the floor, passing between the legs of the ancient war droid.

And then he was up on the far side. He turned, pausing for only a moment. The huge droid seemed initially unscathed, but as it tried to turn, its legs started to fall away from the body. The hulking overloaded torso slid forward along the seams cut by Mander’s lightsaber, and the entire top half of the droid clashed to the ground. The legless torso tried to raise itself on its weapon-arms, but finally collapsed in cybernetic surrender.

The great plant had gone quiet, and Mander hoped that it was a good sign; that Reen and Angela Krin had gotten Vago back to the ship. Without waiting to check, he turned to the turbolifts and ascended. As he rocketed upward, Mander took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Find his center. What had to be done would not be pretty, but it was necessary.

The lift chimed and Mander stepped out. The entire
bridge was lit with emergency lights, broken by blue-hued screens.

“I’ve come for the Spice Lord of Varl,” said Mander.

“Ah,” said Mika the Hutt, standing at the captain’s console, “I see you’ve finally arrived. It has taken you long enough.”

Mika the Hutt was apparently alone in the red-hued darkness of the bridge. He wore a long vest-like coat, open in the front, but cut in the fashion of Mander’s own formal robes. The Hutt’s light yellow-green flesh glowed with the warmth of a hearth in the red light, highlighted by blue holoscreens.

The screens showed scenes in and around the factory-ship. There was the main floor, littered with wrecked droids and burst vats. There was another display, showing a near-identical picture, unscathed. Another manufacturing bay, perhaps to the aft. Hallways throughout the plant flickered in turn, and several holocams showed the
Barabi Run
on its landing pad, the spice unloaded, the headless body of the H-3PO unit still discarded by the entrance.